‘The King and I’ Spotlights an English Governess Who Modernized Siamese Society. The Real Anna Leonowens Exaggerated Her Influence and Lied About Her Origins The beloved musical is loosely based on a Eurasian schoolteacher’s accounts of her time at King Mongkut’s court. These memoirs masked her mixed-race status and unfairly portrayed the monarch as a tyrant Gertrude Lawrence as Anna Leonowens and Yul Brynner as Mongkut in the 1951 Broadway production of  The King and I . The musical turns 75 on March 29. Photo by John Springer Collection / Corbis via Getty Images Seventy-five years ago, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The King and I introduced audiences to a plucky British governess who singlehandedly reformed Siamese society through sheer force of will. In the 1951 Broadway musical’s telling, Anna Leonowens —a real historical figure whose life was fictionalized for the stage— refused to submit to the titular king’s whims and outdated views on issues such as slavery and women’s status in society.…